BLM Proposed Rule Update- Rumors, FS Response to My Questions And a Snippet from a CPR Story

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Many thanks to folks who have sent in comment letters and news stories! There seems to be a full-court press by the Powers That Be on this one. I will stay with this one and provide updates.

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Rumors

Reports are that BLM Director Stone-Manning is concerned that (some) current employees are less than supportive of the Proposed Reg.  I don’t know if they had employee feedback sessions on the draft.. also rumor has it that some employees heard about it from other Interior agencies first.  The latter is a rumor, I’m only mentioning this here because it’s hard to get documentation of non-support from current employees,and the lack of documentation means the “real” press can’t cover it.  I think a current employee would have to be pretty careful with whom they share their opinions. Media folks can give off vibes that they are on the same team as the Biden Admin, which might make it more difficult for employees to open up.  Anyway, FWIW.   Anyone with better info please contact me.

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FS Response to My Questions

I asked the Forest Service the below questions and the Press Office was kind enough to send a timely reply. It was interesting that despite no formal OIRA review, the Forest Service had reviewed the Proposed BLM Reg.  Apparently while I found inconsistencies, that I outlined in this post, either the FS didn’t or aren’t concerned, or were told not to be concerned..which is good to know.  I sent a similar email question to DOE and have not heard back.  FS definitely wins this one, thanks Press Office!  My questions are in bold.

Did USDA review the Proposed Rule, especially the definition of “conservation” that is different from USDA? (I realize the Proposed Rule did not have OIRA review, but they might have asked you as a courtesy).  If so, may I have a copy or the review? Otherwise I can FOIA it.

In the Proposed Rule, the BLM claims that it cannot respond to its challenges without a mapping exercise around “intactness” and without conservation leases. And yet the Forest Service plans to respond to its similar challenges without these tools. Could the USDA or the Forest Service provide a statement on why the Department or the FS doesn’t feel that those tools are necessary for its work?

Here’s the FS response:

The Forest Service was provided the opportunity to review the proposed rule and we are continuing to review and evaluate its impacts to federal lands. Regarding your second question, through implementation of the 2012 planning rule and our recently announced advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, we will continue to address new and existing challenges. Thanks for your inquiry, and as with any federal document, anyone can submit a freedom of information act request to ensure that proper public document release protocols are followed.

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An interesting article on Colorado Public Radio..definitely takes the political angle. but has interesting info.

Here’s a quote: “The concepts and the direction in this proposed rule arise out of years of BLM experience in implementing FLPMA and working with public land users on the ground,” said Culver. I’m not sure that’s true, although a BLM career person in Colorado I know from my past FS work assured me that his own ideas were in it and he had a hand in writing it.  Here’s another section of interest..

Many lawmakers dinged BLM headquarters for not holding hearings in rural areas of the West.

Colorado State BLM Director Doug Vilsack, and other state directors, did travel around talking with stakeholders about the draft.

His message was simple: this is only a starting point. And their suggestions would be important to change it for the better.

“Please get beyond your first reaction to this,” he said. “And look at the words in the rule. And tell how they can be changed. Cause I don’t think there is much debate about the need for actual guidance in how we do conservation in BLM.”

Mr. Vilsack apparently has only worked for the BLM since last July (2022), previously having worked for the State of Colorado.  So he must be on a pretty steep learning curve about what there is a debate about. I think there is, in fact, a debate, a rather noisy one in fact. BLM folks said the same thing at our Denver meeting, that they had spoken to stakeholders about the draft. The problem with this is that it isn’t documented- so if you are a stakeholder and weren’t spoken to.. as people at the meeting I spoke with had not been, you would get the feeling that some stakeholders count, and you aren’t one of them. It doesn’t engender trust.

Pew Report: Check Out Their Mapping Tool for Your Area and Some Ideas for Co-Designed Co-Produced Research and Monitoring

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This is a map of total carbon southeast of Roxborough State Park. Yellow is lots, black is not much (hover over each indicator to see what the colors mean).

Steve posted about this Pew piece yesterday, so I thought I’d take a closer look. He quoted:

The USFS can better incorporate climate change-ready practices in four ways.

1) Use the best available science.
2) Identify specific climate change-ready management tools.
3) Monitor and adapt to changing conditions.
4) Engaging communities and Tribes.

I think the FS is already doing all those things.. so wondered if Pew had any different views. Let’s look at #1. Use the “best available science.”

New management approaches adopted by the Forest Service should encourage the continual incorporation of sound scientific and climate-informed information, as well as collaboration among the agency, Tribes, governments, and stakeholders in the design and development of new research projects to address identified knowledge gaps.

To support this management approach, The Pew Charitable Trusts and Conservation Science Partners (CSP) have released new research that can be used to help inform management decisions with climate change effects in mind, an approach known as climate-ready management. This publicly available data can be viewed with a user-friendly, interactive web map. Designed with input from USFS, the research identifies:

  • Areas of relatively high ecological value (HEVAs), such as places with high biodiversity, resilience to climate change, and significant carbon storage. Such prime locations would contribute most to sustaining forest health if managed with conservation as a priority.
  • Areas where proactive forest management projects would mitigate the risk of large, severe wildfires, which would help to protect communities, ecologically valuable areas, and the provision of ecosystem services.

Together, this data can improve return on investment by identifying places where the right management or the right activities will provide the greatest set of benefits across multiple considerations.

It seems to me that these data would have been improved by “collaboration among the agency, Tribes, governments, and stakeholders in the design and development of new research projects to address identified knowledge gaps.”  Perhaps the HEVA mapping effort is putting the cart before the horse? In fact, it seems like the “right management” and the “right activities” to provide the “greatest set of benefits” is exactly what the forest planning effort is designed to do.. via throwing different approaches, data, observation, and kinds of knowledge around and discussing it.  And maybe jointly, as Pew suggests, investigating new lines of research.  Perhaps Pew could fund some co-designed, co-produced research in support of each forest’s collaborative groups- so take those less  privileged forests (no CFLRP) and provide that capability to them? Similar to the Blue Mountain Forest Partners.. and no need to schedule a plan revision. Pew could help forests develop their own research and monitoring with stakeholders.

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How Useful is This Mapping Exercise? Open Ground-truthing Exercise

I encourage everyone to play with the mapping tool and the indicators for their own area. Here’s the link.  Please comment on what you found for your own area. Check out their Protected Areas and IRA “context” layers, if I read them correctly in my area, they look a little odd.

Anyway, you can check out this spring report from Pew on how protecting high value forest in Colorado can secure over $1.2 billion annually in ecosystem services. It sounds like each NF has had such a report developed.  Maybe recent revision forests can weigh in on whether there were any new insights derived from this way of looking at the forests.

Pew seems to suffer from a degree of plan-olatry:

Updating these plans will also benefit local communities. NFS lands received a record 168 million visits in 2020, an increase of 18 million from the previous year. These visitors contribute approximately $12.5 billion to the U.S. economy each year and support about 154,000 full- and part-time jobs. But this growth in visits also carries challenges, particularly for the wildlife that live in these places. Revising forest plans can help balance where and when tourism and recreation activities are occurring and ensure that infrastructure, such as functional trailhead facilities, supports human visitors and healthy wildlife habitat.

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The rest of the recommendations sound like things the FS is already doing..

2) Identify specific climate change-ready management tools.

Using the best available science, the Forest Service should identify specific strategies to help ecosystems and species resist or adapt to the impacts of climate change and related stressors. Such strategies include:

  • Directing managers to prioritize HEVAs—after considering other important social and economic considerations—for strong conservation-oriented management. (not to speak of Tribes, resource professionals, and community involvement)
  • Promoting connectivity by retaining or restoring migration corridors for species such as mule deer. (the FS works with state wildlife agencies on that)
  • Replacing or removing culverts to allow aquatic species to move throughout streams.(hydrologists and fish bios do this regularly)
  • Restoring forests to their historic mix of young, mature, and old forest types where today’s conditions differ. (NRV, but with litigation from some ENGOs when it involves tree-cutting)

3) Monitor and adapt to changing conditions.

To understand the impact of management choices and trends of ecological conditions, the agency should develop more robust monitoring policies that regularly measure key indicators, such as annual rainfall and population of key species. Monitoring is critical and when science indicates a needed change, the USFS must pivot to incorporate a new management direction in a timely manner. Updated forest plans can serve as the starting point for this adaptive management approach.

(Like I said above, Pew could fund this by helping stakeholders ( a la Blue Mountain Forest Partners) develop research and monitoring; the adaptation by the FS can occur organically with that jointly developed information.)

4) Engaging communities and Tribes.

During the development of management plans, project design, and monitoring programs, the USFS must reflect the needs and desires of communities and Tribes that have a connection to national forests. Such meaningful engagement at every step of these processes will increase the quality and durability of the results.

(I think the FS already does this.. but communities and Tribes can disagree among themselves and with each other. Pew could model this by with involving communities and Tribes in developing ideas and measures for areas they want specially protected perhaps for HEVA 2.0.)

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How the USFS can better incorporate climate change-ready practices

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From the Pew Charitable Trusts:

New Research Can Help Support Health of National Forests
Sound climate change-focused management will benefit both people and environment

Excerpt:

In light of these growing challenges, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is considering new policies that would support the health and sustainability of national forests. These updates have the potential to benefit both people and nature, now and into the future. The USFS can better incorporate climate change-ready practices in four ways.

1) Use the best available science.
2) Identify specific climate change-ready management tools.
3) Monitor and adapt to changing conditions.
4) Engaging communities and Tribes.

The Forest Service is accepting public comment on how it can improve management of NFS lands and be climate change ready. The agency must hear from the public by July 20 about the need to update its policies to support the sustainability of our nation’s forest landscapes. Comments can be submitted to the agency here.

 

Can More Proactive Initial Attack Reduce Wildfire Acres? Guest Post by Murry Taylor

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This StoryMap is pretty cool.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/381fcd4a36584aa28f9d836247d9a939

Background on this topic.  The below post may be highly controversial. I’m posting it because it’s a voice I haven’t heard in some of the media, which equates more burned acres simply to climate change and hence more future wildfire acres, in a fairly apocalyptic framing.  There are two problems with this in my view 1. it’s complex, so simplifying to one cause is actually not true and 2. it ignores all the levers we have to deal with wildfires before our energy is decarbonized, even ones we’re spending megabucks with defense contractors on like new technologies. 

This kind of reporting also ignores the people who actually work with wildfire and their views, which I’m sure are diverse, like any other group.  I see this as part of an ongoing trend to amplify the voices of coastal media and academics (people who work with words) and downplay the voices of people who work directly with things.  The downside of this amplification and deamplification, as I see it, is that by not hearing those voices, we (the people) think we can’t do the things we can do (to improve wildfire suppression, like the Tim Hart Act); and can do the things we can’t do (e.g., finishing forest plans in three years; putting it in a reg did not make it so). And weirdly (feature or bug?)  some disagreements, rather than discussed and understood, are simply dismissed by ad Partiem (I made that up and TSW Latin scholars can help) arguments (e.g. “Republicans are against WFU”).

So Murry can be right, wrong, or anywhere in between. I don’t know, this isn’t my area. But I think his voice needs to be heard and I’m not sure I’ve heard it elsewhere.

Guest post by Murry Taylor

I put this up on the Smokejumpers Facebook page yesterday. It’s in response to an article in a Seattle newspapter about the North Cascade Smokejumper Base in Winthrop, Washington. It’s gotten some attention with various groups pushing for more effective intial attack on wildfires in the west. Here’s what I wrote:


Murry Taylor here. I had 33 seasons fighting fire, 26 as a smokejumper. And now I’ve had 22 seasons on a Cal Fire lookout, so I’ve seen a lot of what I’m talking about. I’m also the author of Jumping Fire: A Smokejumpers Memoir of Fighting Wildfire. While I fully agree that poor forest management (as in accumulated fuels) has led to many of these big fires in the west, I want to point out something else here. One of the big reasons so much public land in the west has burned is the under-utilization of smokejumpers the past couple decades.  


I agree that this article is a pretty comprehensive look at current smokejumping, the work, the demands, the deep satisfaction. Glad I got to read it, but I wish it had included the fact that since 2020, the jumpers only averaged 4.5 fire jumps a season. That’s a terrible under-utilization of such a critical resource. In the past we easily jumped twice that many, and some years four times as many. I’ve seen it many times while on the lookout, Duzel Rock. Fires have not been staffed for a day or two and then gone big and cost tens if not hundreds of millions while the jumpers sat unused. There seems to be a lack of understanding among fire managers in the Forest Service about the capability of these jumpers. Dispatchers have said they didn’t put jumpers on a fire because the “trees were too tall,” or the “winds were too strong.” Clearly they didn’t understand that the jumpers carry 150 let-down ropes, and have a spotter in the plane throwing streamers, and know EXACTLY what the wind is over the fire. The good news is that things seem to be changing for the better. Allowing jumpers to get back to 10 plus fire jumps per season would save big money and lots of acres. For those who think we need to get more fire back on the land, all I can say is, Don’t worry, there’s going to be plenty of that given the way fires burn now. The policy of putting ALL these early season fires out while small would be a big help. That way, when August–the toughest part of fire season– comes the handcrews wouldn’t be scattered all over hell, exhausted, and the skies wouldn’t be filled with smoke so that Air Ops are critically limited. As I mentioned above, things seem to be changing, using jumpers more here and there on various forests in the west. Hopefully that will continue.


To go on here,  I talk with jumpers and hotshots all the time and they tell me that “Yes, sometimes the fuels and new fire weather are a factor in making fires harder to catch.” But MOSTLY, they say, there’s always something that can be done to catch these fires if they are hit while small. As I wrote in Smokejumper magazine last summer, the Rouge River-Siskiyou N.F. in Southern Oregon has taken a more aggressive approach to putting fires out small. In the last three seasons they’ve had 192 fires and ONLY burned 50 acres. This was achieved by prepositioning jumpers during lightning storms, better utilization of rappellers, and contract fire resources. You can read the full article on Wildfire Today by finding it in the archives here. It seems other forests are looking at that now and changes are in the wind. My latest novel, Too Steep and Too Rough tells the story of what I’ve seen as the big problem with weak initial attack here locally in the past two decades. Over and over, while on my lookout, Duzel Rock, I here that certain fires weren’t attacked early because the country was “too steep and too rough.”  

 

Can Mushrooms Prevent Mega-Fires?: WaPo Story

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Here’s an interesting story from the WaPo (thanks to Nick Smith!).

Although this can be accomplished with prescribed burns, the risk of controlled fires getting out of hand has foresters embracing another solution: selectively sawing trees, then stripping the limbs from their trunks and collecting the debris.

The challenge now is what to do with all those piles of sticks, which create fire hazards of their own. Some environmental scientists believe they have an answer: mushrooms. Fungus has an uncommon knack for transformation. Give it garbage, plastic, even corpses, and it will convert them all into something else — for instance, nutrient-rich soil.

An alternative to fire

Down where the Rocky Mountains meet the plains, in pockets of forest west of Denver, mycologists like Zach Hedstrom are harnessing this unique trait to transform fire fuel into a valuable asset for local agriculture.

For Hedstrom, the idea sprung from an experiment on a local organic vegetable farm. He and the farm owner had introduced a native oyster mushroom to wood chips from a tree that fell in a windstorm.

When slash piles are set alight, they burn longer and hotter than most wildfires over a concentrated area. This leaves behind blistered soil where native vegetation struggles for decades to take root. As an alternative, foresters have tried chipping trees on-site and broadcasting the mulch across the forest floor, where it degrades at a snail’s pace in the arid climate. Boulder County also carts some of its slash to biomass heating systems at two public buildings.

“We’re removing a ton of wood out of forests for fire mitigation,” Hedstrom said. “This is not a super sustainable way of managing it.”

He hopes to show that fungi can do it better.

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Mushroom spread

For mycelium to be a truly viable solution to wildfires, however, it would have to work at the scale of the Western landscape. Hedstrom is experimenting with brewing mycelium into a liquid that can be sprayed across hundreds of acres. “It’s a novel biotech solution that has great promise, but is in the early stages,” he said.

Ravage doubts it could be so easy. “Half the battle is how you target the slash,” he said. Success stories like Balcones are rare. Ravage has spent a decade cultivating wild saprophytes and perfecting methods of applying them in Colorado’s forests.

He begins by mulching slash to give his fungi a head start. Then he seeds the mulch with with spawn, or spores that have already begun growing on blocks of the same material, and wets them down. Fungi require damp conditions and will survive in the mulch if it is piled deeply enough. Given the changing character of Western forests, however, aridity poses a serious hurdle.

I suspect aridity was probably a serious hurdle without the character of Western forests changing one iota.

Not sure I’d want to write the EIS for this; although it would be interesting to see who would be on what side.

Wouldn’t it be great if folks imagined doing an EIS before they embarked on certain research ideas (e.g. solar geoengineering?)?

Does anyone else remember when some environmental folks had concerns about collecting tree seeds and “”disrupting gene complexes” if the FS did not use seed from the same site (1980’s, Pacific Northwest). And now, folks talk about moving them farther based on computer models and that is considered a great idea by many.  I wonder if it’s actually the practice itself, who’s doing the practice (and their motives), or why they’re doing the practice, that leads to these apparent differences in being pro or anti various forms of humanipulation.

One thing the reporter did not note is that carbon is released by fungi working on wood, albeit more slowly than burning in piles. And of course, there’s no smoke and waiting for appropriate weather conditions. Actually using the material for something (buildings, heat, electricity, ?), and capturing the carbon is something many folks are working on, thanks to USDA and other grants.  Which might be worth another story.

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Anyway, the complexity of decomposition is interesting, check out this paper..and then this one about insects and fungi.

Furthermore, we apply the experimentally derived decomposition function to a global map of deadwood carbon synthesized from empirical and remote-sensing data, obtaining an estimate of 10.9 ± 3.2 petagram of carbon per year released from deadwood globally, with 93 per cent originating from tropical forests.

93% is a lot.

Embracing “Climate-Smart Science” as a “Complement to the Wildfire Crisis Strategy”

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Apparently the USFS has been doing such a good job of creating forest wildfires in the name of “saving” targeted species that don’t like logging that they are now branching out. Tom Vilsack just created a new USDA Federal Advisory Committee “to provide advice and recommendations on modernizing landscape management across national forests within the Northwest Forest Plan area in Washington, Oregon and Northern California.” 

The purpose of the committee is to “update” the failed Northwest Forest Plan “so that national forests are managed sustainably, adapted to climate change, and resilient to wildfire, insects, disease, and other disturbances, while meeting the needs of local communities” and “also advise how these planning efforts can complement the Wildfire Crisis Strategy.” It will be interesting to see how they plan to “meet the needs local communities,” when even Norm Johnson says that have consistently failed to do so — and government handouts aren’t what’s needed or wanted by most. Jobs, safe forests, and aesthetics should be the focus, in my opinion, certainly not “climate change”; which forests have successfully adapted to for millions of years without government intervention.

The committee contains key members of the Northwest Forest Planning Committee and others who have helped to create this predictable “crisis” in the first place, or have directly profited by its implementation and results. Appointed members include Northwest Plan co-founder, Jerry Franklin, and environmental lawyer, Susan Jane Brown, among others. These are the very people many hold directly responsible for the massive increase in federal forest fire frequency, severity, and extent, and yet: “Establishing this committee is another way for us to embrace climate-smart science, ensure we hear from diverse voices and get a range of perspectives on how to best confront the wildfire crisis and climate change.”

So it appears that by embracing this new kind of “climate-smart science” they will be able to “complement the Wildfire Crisis Strategy?” This sounds like one more way of making things worse, not better! While a handful of people have directly profited by the implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan since Clinton created it in the 1990s, the cost has been tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, tens of millions of burned forestland acres and killed wildlife, widespread rural unemployment, thousands of burned homes, hundreds of dead people, and ruined families and communities. And for what? No evidence a single spotted owl, marbled murrelet, or coho has “survived” because of this gross misdirection. How did we start down this path, and why can’t we get off?

At some point this costly scam needs to end, and maybe this is a step in that direction. One can hope: https://northwestobserver.com/index.php?ArticleId=2856&fbclid=IwAR0xn2cyORelNDOgTyfimZUH8-E9uf0QJPHUe8BUdC3MkHzAX9S4su0ywtc

 

Three Sisters Wilderness Fire

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PR from the Willamette National Forest in Oregon below. Twitter posts follow. Question: If the fire is “creeping and smoldering,” maybe it ought to be monitored, not suppressed, since it probably is a beneficial fire.

Firefighters respond to lightning-caused fire in the Three Sisters Wilderness

McKenzie Bridge, Ore., – July 6, 2023. On July 5, a lightning-caused fire was reported in the Three Sisters Wilderness near Mink Lake Basin north of Park Trail #3530. The fire is named the Moonlight Fire and is approximately 2 acres. Fire behavior is characterized by creeping and smoldering. Currently, 10 smokejumpers are on scene working to suppress the fire. A medium sized type 2 helicopter will arrive later today and will be working out of McKenzie Bridge. Tomorrow, McKenzie River’s 20 person hand crew will arrive in addition to the smokejumpers.

The fire is being managed by McKenzie River Ranger District using full suppression tactics to put the fire out. There is no current threat to structures or nearby communities. We advise the public to please stay out of the area. Updates on Moonlight Fire will continue as needed.

Fire danger level on the Willamette National Forest is “high” and the IFPL level is at IFPLII. There are currently no public use restrictions in place for fire, but Forest Service officials urge everyone to exercise caution while recreating in the woods, especially if they have a campfire. A campfire should be contained in a pre-existing or robust fire ring with a shovel and water in reach. The campfire should be kept small and at least five feet away from any flammable material, including overhanging tree limbs. Never leave a campfire unattended and ensure any burning material is cold to the touch before leaving the area.

Please be aware of current restrictions before you head out and share current information with others who may be unaware of the restrictions. As fire restrictions change, information will be available at https://www.fs.usda.gov/main/willamette/fire. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter @WillametteNF for the latest updates. To report a wildfire, please call 9-1-1.

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Deschutes National Forest Twitter posts:

(3/3) The fire is being managed by McKenzie River Ranger District using full suppression tactics to put the fire out. There is no current threat to structures or nearby communities. We advise the public to please stay out of the area.

(2/3) Currently, 10 smokejumpers are on scene working to suppress the fire. A medium sized type 2 helicopter will arrive later today and will be working out of McKenzie Bridge. Tomorrow, McKenzie River’s 20 person hand crew will arrive in addition to the smokejumpers.

(1/3) On July 5, a lighting-caused fire was reported in the Three Sisters Wilderness near Mink Lake Basin north of Park Trail #3530. The fire is named as the Moonlight Fire and is approximately 2 acres. The fire behavior is characterized by creeping and smoldering.

Sequoia and Sierra Forest Plans- E&E News Story

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This is a long and comprehensive story but I can only quote excerpts, sadly, due to the paywall. I’ll highlight a few points..

The title of the article is “In California forest plan, a hint of climate fights to come.” They seem like the same old fights to me, but with climate issues as a new set of arguments (carbon sequestration, leave them alone vs. if we leave them alone lots of good things, including them, will burn up). Can you imagine a forest plan that says “since most people who recreate on the national forests currently use oil and gas products to get there, or charge their vehicles using electricity at least partially sourced from fossil fuels, we are ceasing recreation except for those who can prove they charge with their own solar panels”.. now that would be a real “climate” fight. Not “let’s thin trees or not.”

For all the rhetoric politicians and policymakers throw at the nation’s growing wildfire crisis, real-life changes in managing the nation’s fire-prone forests are about to play out in a series of dry documents found on the Forest Service website.
These are the land management plans federal law requires the Forest Service to update every 15 years — a deadline that’s rarely met — across the nation’s 175 national forests and grasslands. Two recently completed plans in California reflect the agency’s growing emphasis on climate change as it revises the plans, as well as the hurdles the federal government faces in tackling changing conditions throughout the landscape.
Drafted over the course of a decade, the updates for the Sierra and Sequoia national forests took so long that wildfires tore through some of the areas in question and severe drought killed trees in others, forcing further revisions by forest managers.
“Scientists estimate, based on data collected between 2012 and 2019, that there are now approximately 60.2 million dead trees in the Sierra and Sequoia National Forests killed by drought, insect, and disease,” said Forest Supervisor Dean Gould in the agency’s record of decision in May.

How many times have we pointed out that the plan revision process can’t keep up with real-world changes? It’s too grandiose and unwieldy. Even the Committee of Scientists suggested a loose-leaf notebook approach instead in 1999.

The Forest Service has a total of 128 management plans. Of those, 99 are more than 15 years old, meaning they’re overdue for revision, according to the Forest Service.
Worsening drought and wildfire are pushing the Forest Service toward a more intensive approach, through cutting and removing trees and increasing the use of fire as a tool to naturally reduce potential fuel. The plan update embraces letting some naturally occurring fires burn with monitoring, for ecological benefit — a practice that’s drawn criticism from some groups and Republican lawmakers.

What all sides appear to agree on is that the updated plans in California carry broader lessons for forests throughout the West.

I think the use of managed fire or WFU is a broader policy than what’s in forest plans, since it occurs in many places. And I don’t know any forest plans that don’t allow fuel treatments.  And the GMUG did a fire use amendment so it doesn’t seem necessary to revise to update. Does anyone know exactly what the SS plans do differently specifically on Managed Fire/WFU?

The forest plans for the Sierra and Sequoia, as well as the nearby Inyo National Forest, were among the earliest to go through a process spelled out in a 2012 federal forest planning rule that was supposed to make the process faster and in collaboration with the communities around them. The Sierra and Sequoia updates have good provisions, said Susan Jane Brown, a principal attorney with Silvix Resources, an Oregon environmental law firm specializing in forest issues — but they weren’t in place to deal with the fires and other challenges that arose during the drawn-out revision.

“The fact that it still took the Forest Service more than a decade to get these forests across the finish line is pretty hard to stomach, especially given that part of the selling point of the 2012 rule was to get plans done in two to three years,” Brown told E&E News.

Whoa! Let’s see if we think of the FS as a pack mule, the 2012 Rule was loading the mule up with more weight, assessments, analyses of NRV, and so on.  I don’t know exactly where optimism becomes untruth, but many of us thought that that statement (that plans could be done in two to three years) was quite a ways over the untruth line.  I don’t believe anyone believed that you could put more weight on the pack mule and somehow magically it would move faster.

The revisions in California illustrate the need for regular updates to forest management plans, Brown said. But the Forest Service is slowed by staff turnover, and Congress for years has freed the agency of a legal requirement to update plans every 15 years, through a provision that appears in annual appropriations bills.
“In my experience at the collaborative table, stakeholders are desperate for updated, science-based plans: Most of us are working with plans written in the late 1980s or early 1990s, which were based on information gathered in the 1970s,” Brown said.

My experience, living next to a Forest with a very old plan, is that they are not hindered from doing what needs to be done. Because each plan for actually doing something on the land requires updated info.    It seems after 11 years, the Admin could set up a new Planning FACA Committee to review 2012 Rule implementation, something like the EADM effort with partners who had been involved in plan revisions.  Responding to climate change, both mitigation and adaptation,  requires flexibility. Forest planning is a relic of the planning mindset of close to 50 years ago.

If the updates in California are any indication, forest plan revisions aren’t about to resolve some of the thornier debates about how best to manage forests in the face of climate change. Two questions continue to challenge forest managers: Are relatively frequent high-intensity fires normal in the region, and does thinning and logging forests pose a greater, or lesser,
risk to spotted owls than wildfire?

This is kind of my Pandora’s box argument; a plan revision is an opportunity to open Pandora’s Box of all the disagreements people have, and are working on, project by project. And, does the fact that Chad Hanson disagrees make something a “thorny” debate?

And yes, the Forest Service has a new planning implementation model to speed things up which I described here in 2021. I was never able to access any write-ups describing it, so if anyone has those, please email me.

Last but certainly not least, here’s a big shout-out, congratulations and thank you (!!!) to the folks on the Sierra and Sequoia Forests for having completed their plan revision!
And to those stakeholders, partners and plain old members of the public who kept with it, especially those who weren’t paid, and read those documents anyway.